Getting a Bike Part Two: Training and a Surprise

Regardless, the instruction carried on, while we learned starting and walking the bikes, riding in a straight line, braking, and shifting. Andrew and I were doing really well during the braking exercises, allowing ourselves to reach greater speeds, and still stopping effectively on the line. We would compete to see who went the fastest, but Andrew

"You! Yeah, I'm talking to you!" I learn the finer points of braking in a curve.

always won because he was gutsier.

By lunch on the first day I was feeling really confident about riding, even when we learned how to counter-steer through higher speed turns, and was consequently proud. But when my chance came to ride the Blast, I lost it all.

The afternoon's traffic behavior exercise was an opportunity for everyone to ride in different directions and pretend roads with stop and yield signs were marked. Stopping and shifting, shoulder checking, and completing low speed changes in direction were all to be learned. Having climbed onto a completely different bike, however, I mostly concentrated on getting used to that.

Andrew and I line up for the next exercise.

I had a great time on the Blast. It was a cool bike, comfortable to ride, much bigger and more powerful than the 125s given to us. Best of all, everybody envied me because I was the only one riding a cool bike.

But Andy, the older of our two instructors, wasn't so thrilled. He doesn't believe that people should be switching bikes in the middle of the weekend, and doesn't believe in the Blast as a good learning bike. Great for an experienced rider to improve skills on, but terrible for a first time rider.

He bellowed at me for riding terribly during the exercise. I jokingly said, "I know," but he just yelled at me more. Soon I felt really bad, like I'd done something wrong. Truthfully, I didn't need to practice that much shoulder checking because I am very good at doing it when driving my car (though many don't bother). But Andy felt I had missed out on learning these essential skills.

I shouldn't have let this shake me, because he probably wasn't attacking me personally, but I did. I lost a great deal of confidence and it carried into the second day of training. I didn't learn as quickly as I did the day before, and I seemed to be afraid to bring up my speed high enough to effectively practice shifting and braking in corners.

I practice a high speed curve. And by high speed, I don't mean fast - it was only second gear!

By lunch, I was feeling kind of down. I knew I could pass the test coming up that afternoon, but wanted to be better. Luckily, checking out the Blasts again took my mind off of it.

It's kind of ironic that during the course, the Blasts were the biggest and sportiest bikes in town, but out in the real world, they're just babies. Since I was buying a Blast, I was able to rattle off some knowledge about it to some of the guys in my group. That would probably be the last time I was the most knowledgeable about a bike for some time, and it was great!